Who Are UBS' Top Female Bankers?

The All-Arounder

In 20 years with UBS, Karin Oertli has proven herself a reliable all-around talent: she has worked in risk management, as a private banker, with external asset managers, and most recently as head of the bank’s Swiss asset management arm. There, unit head Ulrich Koerner is counting on the outspoken Swiss native to deliver Swiss growth.

UBS is already the domestic market number-one, so it falls to Oertli to entice pension funds and other big yield-starved domestic clients to seek out the bank for products like hedge funds. The Swiss unit is a large part of Koerner’s plan to reap more than 1 billion Swiss francs in pre-tax profit from the unit.

The Corporate Listener

The head of UBS’ investment bank and corporate client business in Switzerland Christine Novakovic is without a doubt the most exotic of UBS’ top female executives. Formerly a top Hypovereinsbank banker, she left banking for the art world after a takeover by Unicredit.

At the height of the financial crisis, she criticized banking culture as centered around infallible «sun-gods.» Three years later, then-CEO Oswald Gruebel enticed her back into banking with the Swiss clients and institutional role at UBS. In the past, Novakovic has been tipped to move higher, but she has been conspicuous by her absence in the bank’s recent public efforts to bolster female leadership.

The Techie

Veronica Lange is at the center of UBS’ efforts to get in on Blockchain and other emerging financial technologies. UBS lost several tech brains last year, including Blockchain head Alex Batlin as well as innovation guru Oliver Bussmann. Lange, a former Barclays banker, has reinforced the Swiss bank’s commitment to the technology, even as rivals like Goldman Sachs, Santander and Morgan Stanley pull out of a consortium, R3, devoted to Blockchain.

Lange’s job inevitably brings her into contact with a cross-section of UBSers: from old-guard private bankers to apprentices to top executives. She also has a public role to pull off, as a cheerleader for newer financial technologies.

The Private Banker

She is hardly known even in business circles, but she is one of Juerg Zeltner’s highest-ranking private bankers: Eva Lindholm has held the ultra-high net worth job in UBS’ private bank for the past five years.

A J.P. Morgan veteran, the Finnish native is also head of UBS’ global family office group and wealth management in the Nordics, based in London. In her spare time she is a board member of London’s tube operator, a role in which she has publicly tussled with the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

The Macroeconomist

Not yet 40, Veronica Weisser represents the next generation of UBS: the PhD economist leads a macroeconomic team in Zurich focused on Swiss pension assets. In an era of negative interest rates and concern over pensions, the job has lent her a public profile, as have her efforts to promote gender equality in finance.

It remains to be seen whether Weisser wants to branch out from her macroeconomic roots and take on a greater leadership role.

The Booster

Mara Harvey was thrust into the spotlight earlier this year as part of UBS’ five-year plan to to win more business off wealthy women. The program, called «Unique» and championed by private bank head Juerg Zeltner, mark a shift for the traditionally male-controlled bank.

A 17-year UBS veteran and managing director, Harvey’s day job is head of ultra-high net worth clients for Germany, Austria and Italy. The gender push includes training private bankers to better cater to women and diversifying teams. If it pays off, Harvey stands to gain in stature considerably.